Back home after 5 great days in Tromsø. Absolutely fascinating place! Thanks again Jørn for having me, I had a wonderful time. Jørn has a lovely home and a lovely family.

And then of course there was Jørn's well organised tournament. The venue was in the basement of his wife's hair salon, thanks to John bringing his Amiga and TV we set up three game stations (one with a terrible picture, though, we all had to play with that one a few times). There was plenty of beer to keep everyone happy, some great chairs (I adore those professional hair salon leather chairs they have there!), one table was a little shaky (basically on three legs) and luckily I only had to play two games there cause with my style of play, I was scared it would collapse (and take down John's TV, too).

I decided to take it easy - I admit, before and during all the WCs (and the Jerez tournament I participated in) I felt a bit queasy and nervous as well as knackered afterwards and it's not a feeling I enjoy. But this time I was totally at ease during all the games - can't say if I played better or worse because of it, but looking back I'm absolutely happy with my performance. As I told Jørn when we played a few more games yesterday: "I would really like to show you some more of my skills. But the problem is - I just don't possess them."

Anyway, the table reflects the skills fairly well, I think. Now I could argue that my games with John were fairly close and I could have won at least one of them, but I really felt he was better than me and is a really good KO2 player. His BLCs are very good, his "Nikos shots" always have good height, he's got some good corner routines (I think I learned one of them), takes dangerous free kicks and he's generally got all the skills needed to play good and successful KO2 - if he went to visit a group of stronger players, he'd be even better I'm sure.

Jørn's gameplay is nearly as good as mine by now. Which means there's certainly still plenty of room to improve upon, but he can be very happy with what he's capable of. I was indeed a nice guest for "allowing" him to beat me 6-1, after all I won nearly all the friendlies we played. But, hey, KO2 can be a lot like real football, it was an even match, 0-0 for ages, then I was 0-1 down for a while and then he suddenly scored 5 goals in the final 2 or so minutes why I as always missed many good scoring opportunities.

I'm afraid I can't say so much about the other players. Björn started off strong with a victory against John (the posted results are not in the correct order in which the games were played) and only had one narrow loss against me at half-time of the tourney but then had more troubles in the 2nd half. Sindre and Tor ("The Hammer") both hadn't played KO2 in years - Sindre certainly showed a lot of skill even though he was lacking the absolute KOA basics of scoring or even trapping the ball - he got better during the tournament and if Jørn can get him to play some more, he could become a good player. "The Hammer" was too wild, he just loves the slide tackle. He lost 0-17 to John because he lost three of his four defenders fairly soon (and 2 of them when he lost 11-0 to me) - of course he also plays 442, which we (nearly ) all know isn't such a bright idea. He certainly had fun, though. And Lars - well, he uses 532 but it only creates a lot of pressure on him, he should stick with 424, which he switched to against me for a while and got him the 4-4 against Jørn late in the tournament.

Relaxed as I was the tournament was over surprisingly quickly, I hadn't even realised I had just played my last game until I entered the result. We rounded the day off nicely, Tor invited us to his place where we met more people and then we went out for more beers in the bright Tromsø night. Even the cleaning up the next day was only a matter of minutes, thanks to the help of the two Swedes. Guys, thank you for coming - but I have to say again you are totally crazy for making that long, long journey.

Good to hear that nerves/tension are leaving your game. It took me about 2.5 years of KO2 playing to get past this stage and, once it came, this is when I started making it to QFinals of World Cups. We need to work out how to pass this on to Haydn. One of the annoying things about spending time to develop your game is that you then put yourself under pressure to achieve. And this can get in the way and make you play worse!

Good to hear that nerves/tension are leaving your game. It took me about 2.5 years of KO2 playing to get past this stage

...what were you like before that happened???

Seriously though, maybe I would have needed a bit more concentration against John to have a chance of taking points from him. Though it's a two-edged sword - he was up by a couple of goals both times and if I had been too nervous maybe I wouldn't have been able to equalise again (which I did both times), but after that I should have been slightly more "on edge", I was too passive when defending and too sloppy when attacking. But, heck, as I said, he was just too good and could have just as easily won by more goals.

Alex I think you have played enough games against enough people to have that experience that is needed for a more assured performance. Also your results are getting better and this leaves you with less to prove. This can create a virtuous circle just like it can be vicious if you underachieve.

Congrats John for your KO2 success and congrats Jorn for your...ehm organizing success Just kidding it seems it is a fantastic place and everyone enjoyed both side (KO2 and social part).
John i suggest to add something in your signature, something about "2.750 Km just to play KO2"

Me and Bjorn started our journey 05:00 friday morning. We were both really looking forward to some holiday and serious kickoff2 competition, so the hours passed by quickly when we were driving north from the middle of Sweden. Btw, If you never visited Norway, you really should, because it is a beutiful country with all the fjords and mountains.

After a small cock up by me (drivingwise) we finally arrived around 21:00
friday evening. Jorn and Alex met us up and guided us to the place we stayed at during the weekend. Lars joined us and we went out to have a beer or three. It was indeed very nice to see Jorn, Lars and Alex again.

I woke up quite early on Saturday morning. Early it was, considering we got to bed very late. I decided to cure the small hangover with breakfast. Then i woke Bjorn up, we rigged up the TV and amiga and had our first beer together with some practise. We decided to act a bit sloppy in defence in purpose to get our scoring in shape.

When arriving to the hairstudio of Jorns wife, a great place for kickoff, we
met two new faces in Sindre and Thor. Two nice guys.
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SindreSindre was my first opponent. I recall I dominated the first game
quite well, I was 2-0 up at half time, a bit lucky that though when Sindre
hit the post two times in a row just before the break. 7-2 was the final score. The rematch vs Sindre (10-0) was together with my second match vs Jorn, my best in this tournament. It felt like every attempt turned out to be a goal, especially the lobbs worked very well in this game.

Sindre is, as me, a natural lobber. Both of us seem to agree this is a very good way to score. Considering he have no amiga and have not trained since 1990´s or so, i do belive he performed very well. He had two great games vs Bjorn who experienced big problems vs Sindre (3-2, 2-2). I wont hesitate stating that Sindre has potential, i very much hope he´ll start to play regulary with Jorn and co after this.

BjornPMy friend, Bjorn had a somewhat surprice win vs Jorn their opener, it was actually Bjorns first win ever vs Jorn (three straight one goal losses before). I knew it was bad timing to play Bjorn now. Of cource Bjorn scored 6 goals against me once again in a competition match (6-6 in Ostersund). His freescoring was combined with stern defending, was not
much to do about. This time it was enough to take all three points. This win and the earlier win vs Jorn, gave Bjorn a great start in this tournament. When we took eachother on in the re-match i do belive Bjorns confidence had taken a little knock after Alex took the first points from Bjorn in round 6(?) after winning 3-2. I had only wins behind me by now and confidense was on a high. It ended up in a nice 7-1 win to me.

Bjorn is a player, together with Jorn and me, that is clearly better now than he was in Koln last year. I think Bjorn did a very good tournament in Tromso, if he would have not lost narrowly vs Alex (2-3) then who knows what it all would have ended up like? But on the other hand, i know nothing about what that match was like.
Bjorn had several more beers than me during the day, even though he said that was not the reason why he performed great in the first 7 games and won very few games in the last 7 games, i have my own thoughts
about that

JornFMe and Jorn now have three tournament together this year, all of them have taken place in different countries in the nordic area.

After i won vs him in 2 out of 2 games in the world cup, me and Jorn have played very even with equal amount of wins. So before it all started, i saw Jorn together with Alex as the main threats.

Jorn had a horrible start, this when he lost vs Bjorn, me and Alex in the first 1/3 of the tournament. I think maybe Jorn was a bit stressed with all the fixing before we could start. For instance we had a TV that refused to cooperate, he had to fix that instead of playing a few friendlies. Even if we cant see in wich order that games took place, Jorn played very well after these three early defeats.

Our first match is a match i will remember. It turned out to be a goalshow. I had the lead on several occations, but Jorn kept scoring these kickoff-lobs. With short time left of the clock Jorn managed to equlised to 5-5. The match had been ugly though (Jorns Cox had been shown the red), so it was a long injury time. With only seconds left of the match, I got a freekick in a great position, straight outside the penaltyarea. Bjorn said behind me: have you taken such a decisive freekick before? I actually had, in Copenhagen against Jorn (Jorn reminded me about the late 2-1 freekick). This freekick turned out to be a goal as well. Three seconds later the referee blew the whistle just in time to prevent Jorn to equlise on another kickoff-lob(!)

Our second game was, as stated under "Sindre" further up, my best performance this Saturday. Both of us were showing great form. Jorn had just shocked us with a 6-1(!) win vs Alex and i had a 7-1 vs Bjorn just before this match. I remember we said before we started the match, that this will probably end up in a 1-goalwin to Jorn as we had won each match vs eachother with exactly one goal in both Denamrk and Sweden. When Jorn took the lead immidiately i could not belive a 7-1 win to me was waiting around the corner. Like in the replay vs Sindre, it felt like
everything went in. I would like to remember that my lobbing also in this match worked very well.

I think, to be honest, Jorn was a bit unlucky in the start. Reciewing several close defeats from all topplayers. It will be very interesting to see how he will perform in London in the start of September. My guess is that he will do well.

AlexI remember well that Alex was one of the friendly people that did welcome us when we got to the world cup in Germany last year. Therefore it was nice to see him again.

We had a friendly before it all started, he went 2-0 up quickly, but i turned it around and won with 2 goals, if i recall correctly. When it was time for our first game i realy belived in a win. Just in the match vs Jorn i had the lead several times in this match, but with only 30 seconds left or so, Alex equlised to 3-3 (just as Jorn did). Two late blc-goals saved
me though. As Alex stated, this could have turned in any direction when the score were 3-3.
I very well remember Alex in these two games missed two identical chances when the keeper was up in the stands buying hotdogs, and Alex shot wide both times. I guess with some more practice, he would nail such chances. Our second game i cant recall much from (4-2) but i have a feeling i managed to score several blc´s in both legs.

Alex is a tricky player. He showed several trix i never seen before. I belive if he would have dominated our two games he would have caused heavy damage with these crosses from the wings. I think he scored from a very high % of these. Together with Jorn, Alex seem to be a very likely attender in London within two-three months. Im looking forward to see both of them again there.

LarsAIn Ostersund i did not win with big numbers vs Lars, but in differance to Bjorn and me that practices at least once a week vs eachother, Lars had trained only once since the start of June. Today he was also suffering from a heavy hangover. Under these circumstances he was an easier target than last time we met. It ended up in double figures leaked for Lars in both games.

With more practice and less hangover im sure he would have done much better, this when i would like to remember him having
a good defence. His high of the tournament must have been the 4-4 vs Jorn.

I hope Lars will be able to travel to London with Jorn. It would be nice to see him again there.

ThorThor was indeed the tournaments most violent player. He got several penalties against him and several red cards was reciewed. In our second match we got the referee: "Willis" as ref. In half time he had already lost one or two players. With at least three miutes left of the match, he had lost both the central defenders as well as one wingback AND one central midfielder. No wonder it turned out to be big numbers. Though, Thor creates chances. He should have scored vs me in both games, but luck was not with him in the second match. He had scored in every game quite far in the tournament.

Thor got a win, and scored a few. So not that bad performance after all when no practice in several years. I really hope that both Thor and Sindre will join Jorn and co. with playing regulary from now on.

After we finished the last games we went home to Thor´s place. He was very kind and gave us pizza, Alex was very happy when i do belive norwegian frozen pizza is his favorite-meal After that we went out and had a few drinks and beers together.

I have only good to say about everyone that was involved in the ko2 play and i hope i´ll be able to see everyone again, this year or next.

To sum up, both me and Bjorn had a really good time in Tromso and we will very probably return next year, if Jorn is willing to arrange something liket his again. Though, next time we will NOT travel by car because the trip back was, as stated earlier, a missery.

Last edited by hogstrom on Sat Aug 19, 2006 12:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

TheFoxSoft wrote:Congrats John for your KO2 success and congrats Jorn for your...ehm organizing success Just kidding it seems it is a fantastic place and everyone enjoyed both side (KO2 and social part).John i suggest to add something in your signature, something about "2.750 Km just to play KO2"

- Thanks, im very happy with how things turned out ...and 2.730 km in my signature is not a bad idea, ill consider that.

John.... you really are KOA Hardcore now after this trip! Respect! And congrats on the win

- Thanks, it was indeed a very long trip, we take the flight next time...

Just to be another A.D. prophet, I had said from Cologne that John was a very good player with lots of potential - after all, how many newcomers can beat Klaus?

- You´re too kind Spyros, if i remeber correct then i was quite lucky in that game...

First of all, I like to say thank you to those attending, thus making this a memorable weekend for me.
It was no big deal about the organisation, until I discovered that we didn't have the remote for one of the tellys, and the on-telly-buttons was no good for making it turn to the scart-channel. That ended up in me and Lars discussing wether we should bring a new tv, try to find the remote or do whatever... The remote, we got told, was located a nice 1.5 hours drive from town, so we skipped that idea. However, I found I had an antenna-cable for the modulator, so we decided to go with that. Hence the scrummy picture. I guess I was a bit stressed when we started playing, but as soon as the beer started kicking in, that was all forgotten.

Björn POur first match was incredibly nervous, at least from my side. We where really close, but as soon as he got his 1. goal I felt a disturbance in the force. I tried to fight back, but I just felt out of control. When he went up to 2-0 I knew I had lost.
Our 2. game was much better for me, having got my game going, and feeling up to it. I feel I was the deserved winner of that match, even though it still was close (as all our matches are...)

John HOur first match was as they use to be. Close, and quite a bit of goals. I managed to follow him every time he scored; some of my goals was k.o.lobs, but some where due to quite nice skills. After loosing Cox in the end, I had to switch to 532 to at least have some sort of defence. In the end I had to give him a freekick right outside the pen-area, and of course he banged it right in. With the last kick of the match.
Our second match was horrible. By half time it all seemed like business as usual, a 1 goal-lead and hard and close fighting, then came 2. half, and BAM he scores 5, I none. Left me shellshocked. Well deserved for John. A truly great player who'll do some damage in the WC.

Alex BI guess Alex won about 80% or our friendlies, 10% draws, 10% I won. At the tourney I got the better of him. Our first match I can't remember much of, but Alex won fair and square. Our second match however, I'll cherish. I've now got some figures to remember. 3-4, 1-6 and one championship. Actually I don't know what happened, and it was kinda unfair, considering Alex is a much better player then me, but I've accepted the fact that I totally beat him, and it feels good.

Lars ALars started out this tourney with some great hopes to himself. After showing some good figures in Östersund, he'd hoped to keep it up now, but no training means lost matches. We'll see what can't be done in the future. His 4-4 vs me was a matter of LOW concentration and HIGH alcoholconsumption. It'll never happen again.

SindreA really good player, who just need to get going a bit again. You can see from what he does that he knows the game, but need to hone his skills.

TorWhat a funny guy, and what a positive attitude. Celebrated each goal as if it was a WC-victory. We'll play more, and I look forward to it.